The declaration coming out of the Moscow meeting, which was reportedly attended by representatives of countries and the aviation industry, states the 23 signing countries will merely "consider" taking actions against Europe for its pioneering law to curb emissions from aviation. EDF's Annie Petsonk said "Today's failure to reach agreement on a coordinated attack indicates cooler heads may have prevailed." (Thanks and photo credit to Flickr user Aleksander Markin)

The meeting, which was preceded by a greatdealofhypeabout 26 countries' supposedly working toward a "basket of countermeasures" against Europe, produced a joint declaration signed by 23 countries that included a "Basket of ACTIONS/ MEASURES."

ICAO action to cut aviation pollution is critical

The first action/measure in Moscow's "Basket" is launching an "Article 84" case under the Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation — a formal protest against the EU law at the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Countries, the aviation industry and environmentalists have all called for a global system to be developed through ICAO, but 14 years of negotiations has yielded nothing.

ICAO Secretary General Raymond Benjamin had warned weeks prior to the Moscow meeting that a decision by any nation to launch an Article 84 case would distract ICAO from designing and obtaining global agreement on effective, market-based measures to address aviation greenhouse gas emissions.

EDF thinks such constructive participation can help ICAO achieve an effective and durable outcome, which is the best path toward resolving the current dispute. Petsonk said:

Had an Article 84 case been launched, that surely would have called into question the seriousness of the claims of industry and some nations that they truly want a solution in ICAO.

Speaking of industry, the airline industry trade association International Air Transport Association (IATA) was reportedly present at the meeting. However, EDF knows of no “civil society” group invited to the Moscow meeting. Petsonk said in EDF's statement:

With such a limited invite list, the meeting didn’t present an opportunity for a balanced discussion. Civil society must be afforded equal opportunity to participate in ICAO’s work going forward. Such participation can help ICAO achieve an effective and durable outcome.

These countries have agreed to meet again later this year in Saudi Arabia.

Next week, more than two dozen countries, including the United States, are meeting in Moscow to discuss their opposition to Europe’s pioneering law to cut global warming pollution from aviation.

U.S. airlines have said the EU's law that curbs aviation emissions will cost them billions, but new calculations show they could actually make money from it. (Thanks and photo credit to Flickr user DosenPhoto.)

On the agenda for the Moscow meeting are a number of topics that have been lobbied for by the U.S. aviation industry, which has said complying with the EU law will be too expensive.

U.S. airlines have been complaining for years that complying with the EU law will cost them billions of dollars, but we’ve also seen a slew of studies that show the airlines could save money – and even profit – by participating in the system.

United stands to turn a profit of $0.73 to $2.36 per ticket, or in the range of $88,000 to $287,000 a year on its flights from Washington, D.C. (Dulles) to Brussels.

American Airlines stands to reap anywhere from $1.15 to $2.50 per passenger, or $700,000 to $1.2 million a year on its flights from New York (JFK) to London Heathrow.

Delta Air Lines, which was the first carrier to impose a surcharge, could profit between $1.02 and $2.53 per ticket from Minneapolis, or $449,000 to $1.1 million annually on its Minneapolis to Amsterdam flight.

U.S. carriers aren't the only ones finding profit in the emissions cap; airlines around the world could be poised to profit, too:

Etihad Airways' $3/ticket surcharge could net between $1.10 and $2.52 per passenger per flight* from Abu Dhabi to London.

AirAsia X's surcharge of $6.50 could produce a profit of $2.05 to $5.25 per passenger per flight* from Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to Paris.

Aeroflot Russian Airlines, if it matched United’s $3 fare increase,could make between $2.26 and $2.69 per ticket* on a typical flight from Moscow to Berlin.

(*These airlines’ ticket sales numbers are not publicly available so we are unable to calculate their potential annual profits.)

It’s critical to remember the purpose of the EU's law is to cut pollution. The aviation sector is growing so rapidly that, if emissions from aviation were left unregulated, they would quadruple from 2005 levels by 2050; the EU law will cut 183 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2020, equivalent to taking 30 million cars off the road every year.

The data show that airlines’ claims of suffering a disproportionate burden and punitive costs to meet the cap are wrong. Savvy companies will see the law not as the burden that it isn’t, but as the opportunity that it is, and we would hope the airlines direct any profits to technology that can help them further reduce their emissions and fly cleaner and greener.

As the European Union gets closer to implementing a law to control greenhouse gas emissions from aviation, U.S. airlines are stepping up their efforts to mischaracterize and undermine the program by calling it a “tax” instead of what it really is – a market-based cap on pollution that lets them find the best and cheapest way to reduce emissions.

Adding "winglets" and other structural modifications to planes can improve flight efficiency and help airlines comply with Europe's law to reduce emissions from the rapidly growing aviation sector. (Thanks and photo credit to Flickr user Bow's Photography.)

It’s no surprise. It’s the same tactic some in industry used to mischaracterize climate change legislation in the U.S. during the last Congress, and they’re doing it again to undermine Europe's efforts.

The aviation sector today emits about as much climate pollution as all of the United Kingdom, and that amount is projected to quadruple by 2050. There will be a cost to reducing those emissions. But just because something has a cost, that does not make it a tax.

The EU law puts a quantity limit, or cap, on the total amount of climate pollution of all flights landing at or taking off from EU airports. Every company whose planes land at or take off from airports in Europe has to ensure that at the end of each year, the amount of pollution of its planes is less than the amount of its cap. It's that simple.

The EU could have slapped a tax on air travel in order to drive up the price and therefore reduce demand for air travel as a means of cutting down aviation pollution. But this law doesn't do that.

The EU could have required the airlines to install particular pollution control technologies. But the law doesn't do that either.

Importantly, the EU law also gives airlines very broad flexibility to decide how to meet their caps. Airlines have wide latitude to choose among many competing strategies, and the competition among the strategies to deliver the most cost-effective emissions reductions help drive down the costs of all of them.

To meet their caps, airlines can make practical changes in their operations, such as:

Using gradual "continuous ascent" and "continuous descent", which saves a lot of fuel, instead of today's steep, fuel-guzzling climb-ups and climb-downs.

Using climate-friendlier fuels like sustainably produced biofuels.

Putting modern, high-efficiency engines on existing planes.

Adding "winglets" and other structural modifications to planes to improve flight efficiency.

Buying or leasing new, more fuel-efficient planes.

Purchasing pollution credits from a wide array of projects in different countries that reduce emissions outside the aviation sector, or purchasing emissions allowances from the EU.

Why do the airlines want the EU law called a tax? Because they don't like the law, and they want to argue that they shouldn't be subject to more taxes. It's inaccurate and wrong for the airlines to label the program as a tax on aviation emissions.

The EU chose a cap, rather than a tax, as the most efficient and cost-effective way to reduce aviation emissions. Don’t let the airlines fool you: the EU Aviation Directive is a cap, not a tax.

The most recent UN climate negotiations wrapped up in December with a better-than-anticipated outcome, but the preparations for the next set — this year in Qatar — are already underway.

Policies to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) and to protect the rights of indigenous peoples who live in the forests made important progress in the recent UN climate negotiations in Durban.

Below is our analysis of where REDD+ negotiations ended in Durban, and what we're likely to see as countries gear up for the Qatar negotiations. You can find additional analysis of Durban negotiations by EDF's International Climate Program Director Jennifer Haverkamp in her blog post In Durban, world's major economies show will to address climate change.

The Durban REDD+ Outcome

In an annual ritual, government negotiators, NGOs and journalists attended the December 2011 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Durban, South Africa. Negotiators in Durban approved technical guidelines for ensuring that reference levels — benchmarks for measuring progress in reducing emissions from deforestation — have environmental integrity. EDF had been eagerly anticipating this technical decision going into Durban, these new guidelines will provide a framework and necessary guidelines on how to establish reference levels that are based on science and that can serve as a measuring stick for environmental performance and financial compensation.

REDD+ policies got a major boost in Durban when countries agreed that all sources of funding, including carbon markets, are eligible to pay for REDD+ activities. After years of exploring how to pay for all three stages of REDD+ (capacity building, early implementation and national-level pay-for-performance), the UN has put its seal of approval on the use of markets. Estimates indicate that while public financing is needed, especially for the capacity building stage, only large-scale, sustainable funding from carbon markets will generate sufficient funding. EDF applauds this decision.

The decision on REDD+ finance, in the “Long-term Cooperative Action” (LCA) negotiations, included a clear endorsement of all sources of finance, a call for a REDD+ finance workshop and a technical paper in 2012.

Looking forward to next year’s climate negotiations in Qatar, countries will start deciding on the details of reference levels, and some will begin to calculate their reference levels using the guidance decided in Durban. As more specific REDD+ financing methods are developed, countries will hold a REDD+ finance workshop and produce a technical paper that will attempt to answer some of the questions around financing REDD+.

Indigenous peoples & REDD+

Negotiators in Durban approved critical provisions for ensuring the rights of Indigenous Peoples are respected and will be safeguarded in the implementation of REDD+ programs. Parties also outlined the protections for Indigenous Peoples prominently in the LCA’s financing sections. Still, negotiators only developed a framework for systems of reporting on the implementation of REDD+ safeguards and decided to continue working on the content of these REDD+ systems next year.

Durban resulted in a positive step forward in providing preliminary guidance for the reporting on the implementation of safeguards as countries launch REDD readiness initiatives already being financed through the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, UN-REDD program, and other bilateral initiatives. More importantly, we’re seeing indigenous peoples in many countries developing their own consultation and information gathering processes that will feed information into these systems.

The Durban conference as a whole produced surprisingly good results, given our modest expectations. However, it is important to note that there are a lot of concrete actions taking place outside of the UNFCCC forum, including efforts to open a path for REDD+ credits from Brazil, Mexico and beyond to flow into California’s emerging carbon market. Top-down efforts at the international level can only succeed if bottom-up actions like these are being successfully implemented.

Whether Brazil continues to reduce its deforestation could depend on the outcome of a vote on its forest protection law in Brazil's lower house in March and sign-off from the president. Above: the home of Brazil's Congress, Congresso Nacional do Brasil (Photo credit and thanks to Flickr user JorgeBRAZIL)

Brazil’s law regulating deforestation on private land, the Forest Code, has been around since 1965; until relatively recently, it was hardly enforced and rarely obeyed.

That changed under former Environment Minister Silva. In 2003 she launched a national Plan for the Prevention and Control of Amazon Deforestation that ramped up law enforcement and established 600,000 square kilometers – an area the size of France – of new protected areas. These indigenous lands, parks, and forest-land reserves were located in the areas most affected by the expansion of agriculture.

Coupled with a temporary decline in agriculture commodity prices, the Plan brought deforestation way down, and persuaded policy makers that Brazil could commit not only to a national deforestation target, but to an overall national emissions reduction target as well.

However, while the deforestation plan was supposed to have a carrot (positive incentives for conservation) in addition to the stick (cracking down on illegal deforestation), so far it’s pretty much been all stick and no carrot: lots of law enforcement, but no incentives to keep the forests standing.

Farmers lash back

Many large-scale farmers in Brazil historically had railed against the Forest Code as being too restrictive, but were too busy cutting down trees to plant cattle pasture and soybeans to do much about it. Since the Code was rarely enforced, they didn’t much care.

An aerial view of Mato Grosso shows the stark distinctions between protected forests and land that has been cleared for cattle pasture or agriculture.

But they started to take notice when government, under Minister Marina Silva, began enforcing the Code and fining them for violations.

They also noticed when the environmental group Greenpeace mobilized big European soy importers to declare a moratorium on soy imports from land deforested after 2006, and when national supermarket chains, prodded by Brazil’s Attorney General, called for deforestation-free beef in 2009. Most people in urban Brazil agree that Amazon deforestation should stop, and support such measures.

For many of the large-scale farmers in Brazil and their powerful block of congressional representatives – the “ruralistas” – the solution to their not being in compliance with the law when government started enforcing it was to weaken the law.

So for the past two years, the ruralistas have been making a concerted push to radically weaken the Forest Code.

Last June, the ruralistas pushed a revised Forest Code through the lower house of Congress that amounted to a license to deforest. The bill, sponsored by a ruralista-friendly member of the Communist party, would fix the ruralistas’ problem by giving an amnesty for past illegal deforestation, and could open up new land for clearance.

Environmentalists and the Brazilian scientific community strongly contested the House bill. President Rousseff had promised during the presidential campaign to veto a new Forest Code that would increase deforestation or amnesty past illegal deforestation, but her administration was a belated and ineffective participant in the House debate.

The amnesty for deforestation that has plagued these bills is unfair to the few farmers who made the effort to comply with the law, and could give all farmers the bad idea that if one new law granting amnesty for illegal deforestation is good, two – or more – are better. If farmers think that an amnesty now means that future illegal deforestation will eventually be amnestied too, they will take the new Code as a license to deforest. Penalties for scofflaws, and a clear pathway to legality with positive incentives, especially for small famers, would be much better.

Environmentalists are calling on Dilma to keep her campaign promise and veto the amnesty.

Deforestation: the price of progress? Not really.

For years, the ruralistas have insisted with increasing vehemence that the current Forest Code is an enormous, unfair obstacle to the growth of Brazilian agriculture. (They also often claim that environmentalists who support the Forest Code are no more than a front for foreign agriculture interests trying to protect themselves against Brazilian competition).

But there is solid evidence that while deforestation rates were falling to the lowest levels on record, Brazil and Amazon states were getting richer and agriculture production was growing to record levels.

A vivid example is Brazil’s biggest agricultural state, Mato Grosso.

Deforestation (red line in Fig. 1 above) in Brazil's state of Mato Grosso plummeted as production of soybeans (green) and cattle (blue) increased substantially from 2001-2010. (PNAS)

The state had the highest deforestation rate in the Amazon from 2000–2005, but over the next five years (2006-2010) saw deforestation fall more than 70% below historic levels. At the same time, agriculture production reached an all-time high, according to a recent article in the leading scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In “Decoupling of deforestation and soy production in the southern Amazon during the late 2000s,” Marcia Macedo, Ruth DeFries and others also show in great detail that in recent years, while soy prices and production picked up substantially, deforestation kept going down.

Ruralista rhetoric to the contrary, Brazil and Amazon states have shown decisively that, so far, they have the wherewithal to reduce deforestation substantially while they grow their economies and their agriculture sectors.

However, as the Times story correctly notes, Forest Code amendments threaten to usher in open season on forests. The government has watered down environmental licensing for big infrastructure projects like dams and roads and has rolled back protected areas in the Amazon by a form of executive fiat. Brazil’s Congress is also considering a bill that would give it a veto over recognizing new indigenous lands.

Brazil is home to about 40% of the world's tropical forests and a pioneer in policies to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+), which could provide the positive economic incentives needed to maintain Brazil's progress in continuing to curb deforestation.

Perhaps most critically, there has been little progress on providing the carrot – positive economic incentives to keep deforestation going down and to restore degraded forests – that Brazil needs in order to sustain the progress it made during the last decade into the future.

One candidate for the carrot is Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) – the concept that reducing deforestation is good for the atmosphere and needs international compensation. Brazil was one of the pioneers of this idea in the international climate talks, and consequently created the Amazon Fund, to which Norway has committed $1 billion if the country continues to meet its 2020 target.

Brazil’s National Climate Change Policy also calls for the creation of a Brazilian emissions reductions market. But the federal government has made little headway on creating its own carbon market and has been reluctant to look at linking up with international carbon markets to pay for reducing deforestation. Both could go a long way to creating the incentives needed to grow the economy and sustainably expand agriculture and forestry, while stopping deforestation and restoring degraded forests.

What all of this means is that Brazil still leads the world in reducing carbon emissions because of its success in reducing Amazon deforestation – but risks reversing the trend if it approves a general amnesty for illegal deforestation. President Rousseff should listen carefully to Brazil’s world-class scientific community on how to balance environmental protection and development priorities, in the Forest Code and more broadly.

As Brazil prepares to host the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, it will find no lack of major developed countries to criticize for foot-dragging, omission, or outright obstruction on global environmental issues. Ambitious new commitments on environment and development are unlikely under the specter of economic crisis in the EU and anemic growth in the U.S. Blaming richer countries for tepid results is one possible outcome.

But if President Rousseff musters the political will to kill the deforestation amnesty and save the Forest Code, Brazil could do much better in Rio+ 20. It might find ways to use its world-leading achievement in reducing emissions from deforestation to chart the way to both more ambitious commitments and effective actions from other major economies going forward, and for funding for a sustainable low-carbon development strategy.

Climate change is likely to be high on the agenda of Mexico’s Congress when it returns to session today, and the world will be watching as the 15th largest emitter of global greenhouse gas emissions considers what would be the country’s first comprehensive law to curb climate change.

Mexico's lower house of Congress, which returns to session today, is anticipated to consider a sweeping climate change bill this spring. (Photo credit and thanks to Flickr user SCA)

The “General Law on Climate Change” has already made successful inroads in Congress, having passed Mexico’s Senate with an overwhelming majority in early December. This spring, the Senate-approved version of the bill is anticipated to be considered in Mexico’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies.

The bill is still subject to change in the Chamber of Deputies from the language approved in the Senate. However, the current version provides some ambitious, albeit not obligatory, goals for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, as well as promising paths to achieve these goals through promoting renewable energy, ratcheting down of fossil fuel subsidies, and reducing emissions from land-use change.

The key features of the Senate-passed legislation include:

The permanent establishment of a new high-level Inter-secretarial Commission on Climate Change.

Creation of a climate fund to collect and channel resources for climate change activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) and adapt to the changing climate (adaptation).

Authority to establish an emissions market that can include international transactions between Mexico and any countries with which it makes emissions trading agreements.

Requirements for mandatory emissions reporting and the creation of a public emissions registry that will cover emissions sources from power generation and use, transport, agriculture, stockbreeding, forestry and other land uses, solid waste, and industrial processes.

Goals for states to reverse the trend of deforestation, increase electricity generation from clean sources to 35% by 2024, and reduce fossil fuel subsidies.

While the Chamber of Deputies is able to make modifications to the bill, the threat of triggering delays for additional voting – especially now, as this Congressional session, scheduled to end this August, winds down – often incentivizes keeping the bill in its current form.

Broad support, efforts in Mexico to address climate change

Global attention on Mexico’s climate policy has faded from its 2010 peak when the country hosted the UN climate negotiations, but Mexico’s motivation to address climate change has not.

Mexico's President Felipe Calderón, who has made climate change a top priority in his administration, signed an agreement with the United States in January to "advance towards a green economy." (Photo credit and thanks to the Mexico's Presidency of the Republic)

Particularly over the last several years, the country has shown political willingness to address climate change, with a pledge to halve its emissions by 2050 from 2000 levels, and a number of sweeping climate change bills brought up in the Senate. Though the other climate bills never became law, the current bill’s overwhelming approval in the Senate by a broad coalition of sponsors (76-2 with 5 abstentions) shows a stronger momentum than we’ve seen.

While the political composition of Mexico’s lower chamber may mean the bill will not have as broad support in the Chamber of Deputies as it had in the Senate, it may benefit from that momentum.

Meanwhile, President Felipe Calderón has made clear climate change is a top priority in his administration, and in mid-January signed a formal agreement with the U.S. to “advance towards a green economy.”

Mexico’s passing this bill to enshrine domestic action on climate change into law guarantees the country’s efforts to curbing climate change can extend far beyond the current president.

And, as the world’s 15th largest global emitter of greenhouse gases, Mexico’s domestic environmental leadership will also be particularly important as the world increasingly acknowledges that action from developed and developing countries alike will be necessary if we are to avoid the disastrous effects of global warming.

*Clarification (Feb. 3): The third bullet point above has been revised to reflect a more accurate translation of the relevant provision.